Sunday, July 30, 2006

On 26th July, I went to the funeral of Kevin Hughes. We had been colleagues as Labour M.P.s from his first being elected in 1992 until we both retired at the last election.

Whilst I retired because of my age and have now reached 70, Kevin’s retirement was a sad matter. He had a variant of Motor Neurone disease and knew that he would only survive for a limited time. Yet, typically, he tried to keep other people’s spirits up when he told them his sad news. He was only 53.

I had known Kevin since 1978, when I was his tutor in politics in the third year of an Industrial Day Release Course for N.U.M. members which was run by the Sheffield University Extramural Department. Appropriately, we were studying politics.

He had just resigned for the Communist Party in Doncaster, where I have been told he was made Secretary at the first meeting he attended. By I met him, he had moved into the Labour Party in the Don Valley Constituency. But from his full and passionate contributions, I had him marked down as a “revolutionary socialist”.

He arrived in Parliament five years after I did and, unlike myself, he moved solidly into a New Labour agenda.

I believe that his approach was shaped by two important factors. First, he believed in team loyalty and carried this over with him from the days of his political apprenticeship in the Communist Party. And whilst he started out in the Labour Party on the far left, he acted as a loyal grouser with his team loyalty coming to the fore as his responsibilities grew. This is by no means the same thing as coming to sell out his principles for preferment. It is his preferring to advance his principles by seeking to unite his Party with the community he represented.

Secondly, the industrial wing of the Labour Movement which he was always part of, was the NUM. He was fully active in the 1984 Miners Strike, but came to see Arthur Scargill’s approach as adventurist. This confirmed Kevin in his belief that socialism needed to be practical and to deliver for working people and their families.

The Church service in celebration of his life was held in Campsall, near Doncaster in his former Constituency and near where he had lived.

The things I will remember about the service are Kevin’s own arrangements for it. Because he knew that his final moments were approaching, he selected the hymns and the readings. He had worked at Brodworth Colliery , being on their NUM Committee when I first met him. So he arranged to have their branch banner in the Church. We started singing with Blake and the need to build “Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land”.

Just as Blake’s hymn combines the best of Christian and Humanist feelings, then so did the reading from Chapter 2 of James. It called for practical help for the poor and concluded that if our faith “includes no actions, then it is dead”.

It was then no surprise that the address given by the Bishop of Doncaster, revealed that Kevin was indeed a Humanist.

The fact that he had arranged a Church setting for his funeral, seemed to me to tell us about Kevin and his strengths. To have held a Humanist Service outside of Church would have been seen by him as mere posturing.

I am sure that he felt that his family and his community would be at home in their Parish Church. These were the people from which he drew his commitments and he needed to be at one with them at the close.

Whilst Kevin and I were often in disagreement on policy matters in the Commons and he felt that as a former tutor I was given more to serving ideas than his people, we were far from being in conflict.

He used to claim, as part of his typical banter, that I still had not returned one of his essays from nearly 30 years ago. Responding in kind, I used to threaten to dig it out and have it published to reveal his past revolutionary disposition. But the banter always continued, with “have you found that essay yet?”

I know one thing, whatever it said was said with conviction, the same conviction which led him to serve his community, his union and his political party in the most effective ways he could.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The Observer ran a dramatic extract from Jason Burke’s book On the Road to Kandahar. They selected the piece he wrote about his experiences in Iraqi Kurdistan on 4th April 2003, during the invasion of Iraq.

Jason Burke’s piece started with him telling us about his experiences close to a bridge some 20 miles south of the Kurdish-held city of Arbil; where Saddam Hussein’s troops were counter attacking after the Kurdish peshmerga had driven them from the bridge earlier in the day.

As luck would have it, I was on a delegation to Iraqi Kurdistan involving “Labour Friends of Iraq” (LFIQ) exactly three years to the day afterwards and just missed out travelling over the same bridge.

Leaving Arbil

On 4th April 2006 we went by road from Arbil to Sulaymaniyah. The quickest route would have been to travel south to Kirkuk, crossing over the bridge at Qosh Tepe. But as our activities had been splashed over the local media, our hosts from the Kurdish Worker’s Federation didn’t wish us to travel through Kirkuk which is volatile as it is disputed territory between Arabs and Kurds. We could have been targeted.

Instead we took a longer, but equally fascinating route to Sulaymaniyah.

The centre of Arbil is dominated by regular road checks plus huge concrete blocks around public buildings and hotels. Whenever we were checked out by troops, police or peshmerga, we felt that we could trust them. It would have been a different story in Baghdad, as someone would have passed on the information to ensure our later interception and kidnapping.

Leaving Arbil we passed through the district of Sawaran and as in the town centre, the roads were well kept. It reminded me of the Basra I knew 50 years ago when undertaking my National Service with its wide variety of housing in close proximity to each other. Yet all set on mud dominated surrounds.

The big difference was the considerable amount of private house building that was taking place. This was a common pattern in all urban areas for the rest of our journey, added to by an impressive Council Housing estate under construction on the outskirts of Sulaymaniyah.

Via An Impressive Kui Sarjaq

The road checks thinned out in the countryside, but those in the front seats of our car hurriedly fastened their seat belts for the first time as we approached the check point at the town of Koi Sanjaq.

With its surrounding villages, this is an area of 100,000 population. We passed an impressive new library, which would have put some of our own equivalents to shame. As in Arbil, the streets were full of many older private cars and taxis. Everywhere you turned there were Satellite dishes.

Smart young girls in school uniform, walked up the steep high street. As we left the town we saw extensive new university student dormitories.

It wasn’t a sign of opulence, but of a great deal of individual and community effort in circumstances of a new found freedom.

Once we moved into the countryside there was little sign of armed troops. The first pot holes appeared in the road, but we soon passed them by.

Interpreting Education

I was travelling in the back of the car with a young interpreter. He was a University Graduate who had been a primary school teacher until recently. He had disliked the boring nature of teaching in his village school, with its culture of domination by many of his fellow teachers over their pupils.

These attitudes in teaching arise from a strong tradition of what took place under Baathist rule. It is a problem that had been brought very openly to our attention by Abul-Arziz Taib, the Minister of Education, the day before our journey. He said that it even spilt over into a practice of physical violence by some teachers, although hitting children is now officially banned in Iraqi Kurdistan and in the rest of Iraq.

Our interpreter confirmed what we had been told. The Minister having spelt out for us the efforts being made by his Kurdish Regional Government to overcome these disturbing matters.

The interpreter’s ambition was to study for a Master’s Degree in America. Before we had exhausted my limited knowledge on Jean Piaget and the development of children, we reached a check-point flying the flag of Kurdistan.

Hydro Potential

We now travelled down a more problematic road, alongside a mountain range which obscured our view of Buhayrat Dokan. This lake is used for the hydro-electric station at the township of Dokan at its southern end.

Plans are in place to extend such hydro-electric supplies to overcome the periodic interruption of electricity services which we had experienced in Arbil.

After a stop for char, we were soon diverted onto a lengthy mud track round a kilometre of a new section of road that was being built. There was some frustration expressed by our Kurdish friends, as it had already taken three months to work on this stretch of road and it was still nowhere near completion.

Cement, Construction and Comrades

When we got back onto the main road, we passed a cement factory and were soon joining the road that came from Kirkuk on our way to Sulaymaniyah. This was a fine highway, which had been built whilst the invasion of Iraq was in full swing.

At Sulaymaniyah we passed a large Guard Centre, blocks of University flats, the industrial area (including another cement factory), and holiday chalets with a tourist resort that is still under construction.

This did not look like a society on its knees. Construction and especially house building is massive. They are keen that when privatisation arrives, it will not be of the Russian turbo capitalist variety. But a wise investor would move into construction, cement and (once you see the mountain’s and their plans for lakes) tourism - which will initially be home based.

Our first port of call at Sulaymaniyah was really something. We went to the offices of The Kurdistan Workers’ Federation. Outside was a line of thirty Trade Unionists to welcome us and to vigorously shake our hands. Inside the building there was another large reception committee.

The President welcomed us and I replied introducing our delegation. We had detailed high level discussions with Trade Union leaders in both Arbil and later in Sulaymaniyah, but this was a very relaxed, welcoming and getting to-know each other session.

Another Democratic Infrastructure

We then went straight to our hotel to ready ourselves for the evening meeting at the Bureau of Civic Organisations.

This body draws together Trade Unions, Farmers, Youth and Women’s Organisations, M.P.s, groups of those blinded (often from mines) and those with genetic problems (arising from the consequences of chemical attacks) including a Dwarfs section.

It covers 400,000 members in Iraqi Kurdistan, links with 40 NGOs (who deal with issues such as corruption), provides an intellectual centre, has produced 35 books on civic society and social problems, runs a weekly magazine and has a radio station.Our Trade Union friends were fully involved in the discussions.

At the moment Iraqi Kurdistan circumvents much of the anti-social legislative framework which hits the rest of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s law 150 still exists and declares Trade Unions in the public sector to be illegal. Yet 80% of those in work are public employees. Whilst a more recent decree 8750 allows the State to act as a sequester of Trade Union funds. NGOs activities are also curtailed.

Thankfully, none of these measures have yet impacted upon Iraqi Kurdistan. Whilst the most outspoken people at our meeting were a group of women, who werepersistent in seeking to protect and further equal rights. Women Trade Unionists were also prominent on the shop floor when we visited a couple of works the following day.

The Civic Organisations need our understanding and help. LFIQ attempts to do this, especially via our links with the Trade Union Movement both in Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. On our visit we met representatives of the bulk of the Iraqi Trade Union Movement, which peaked at over 1 million strong. It is, of course, now under massive pressures outside of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Reflections

Our 4 April in Iraqi Kurdistan showed the extent to which things in many areas have progressed since Jason Burke examined the fighting itself. There are still, however, the special problems I have referred to in Kirkuk, whilst Mosul is targeted as a forces training centre. Even our trip to Halabja had to be cancelled for safety reasons when shortly before our visit it experienced riots leading to the destruction of the monument to the memory of those who were gassed.

Our April 4th was massively important for our understanding of developments in Iraqi Kurdistan. It provides a pattern of hope for the rest of Iraq, especially if we assist its Trade Union Movement.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Trade unionists and progressives around the world should be shouting about this small miracle from the rooftops. A clandestine and repressed trade union movement with only a hundred or so cadres, under the thumb of a fascist-type state, develops almost overnight into a powerful movement with more than 200,000 members.

But the story of the Iraqi trade union movement – and its potential to help stabilise Iraq as a decent democracy and help spread democratic, pluralist and trade union values throughout the Middle East – has not yet appeared on the radar screens of all labour activists.

This invaluable, detailed and passionate book is a tribute to the life and times of Hadi Saleh who was jailed, nearly executed and then exiled for his union activities. He returned before Saddam’s regime fell and, together with his comrades, set about re-establishing the movement. He was well known to a wide range of free trade union leaders, and others throughout the world, as he tirelessly criss-crossed the globe to muster international support for the new Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.

He was flesh and blood to many who decided that the key priority was solidarity with the Iraqi movement. His murder was brutal in the extreme. One small consolation is that it doubled the determination of many who had met him to increase solidarity with his comrades.

I was one of those lucky enough to meet Hadi when he addressed MPs and supporters of Labour Friends of Iraq in the Commons on two occasions. Hadi was a quiet man with a permanent smile and his words energised those who met him.

This books pays a handsome tribute to Hadi and reminds us that the most fitting way to acknowledge his courage is to concern ourselves with the needs of our brothers and sisters in the new and unified General Federation of Iraqi Workers

About Me

81 years old. This blog was established on my 70th birthday, hence its name and the above photo. Current Commitments : Political Education and Research. Former Labour M.P. North East Derbyshire 1987-2005.